I could see Apple making a car

What else are they going to do with their money? Keep making phones and computers? Both of those are commodities. Apple needs to make something big, expensive and cool that they can sell at high margins.

Hasn't that always been what the auto industry see's it's product as?

Tesla has shown on a small scale that a new car company can be started.

With all of Apple's money in the bank, it's not a completely ridiculous idea.

Thing is, I don't think any amount of money or branding will make cars cool again for the masses. Not even Apple. Everyone likes cars, they are a still status symbols, sure. But it isn't the 50s or 60s any more.

They need something big again. The iWatch will be a nice business, but it's tablet big, not phone big. An iCar? Sure why not.

This is the problem with growing forms of entertainment and a desire to grow consumption of all those forms. It can't be done, since the day is still 24 hours in length and no technology looks to change that anytime soon.

Let's Go Surfing

The marketing industry is too often, full of itself and trying too desperate to come up with "clever" things.

Internally the marketing process over emphasizes "clever" to a point to where they are really only speaking to themselves now.

It's not just internally motivated though, the external motivator is the promise of "going viral" the fabled promise that if your idea is clever enough, it becomes part of the culture and everyone else appropriates the idea and you get "FREE ADVERTISING" and "MINDSHARE" due to your clever idea's popularity.

Still only 24 hours a day. The more content and subgroups you create, the more finely you slice that attention. I found the below 3 points from the article, interesting:

But as social media has splintered into ever tinier subcultures, the atomization of fame has only accelerated. There are simply too many microcelebs on too many platforms to keep track of. Microfame, in other words, has evolved into nanofame.

Nanofamers may be idolized by their million-plus followers, but they are often unknown to those on the outside.

“When there are lot of people making a public claim for their own importance, each gets a smaller bit.

Now, “this” is a social network, This.cm, which allows users to post one link a day, with the intent of sifting through the Internet noise and focusing attention on a standout news article, blog post or podcast.

Too limiting. Would work better as a "this flag" that you could set on twitter and facebook guaranteeing that your followers would see that "one" important post.

Junior Superheroes

Two pick-ups this week.

First up, Damian Wayne (Robin) show here with the other angry Robin, Jason Todd - The Red Hood. Damian is inspired by the recent Son of Batman animated DVD, and it's a nice version of the character. I like his hood and his sword. He's a great scale and sculpt as befits the 10 year old Bat-sidekick and heir. I got him in a nice sale on Amazon for pretty cheap last week.

Second up, Miles Morales the 14 year old from the Ultimate Universe who also gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gets powers similar to Peter Parker (who was killed in the Ultimate Marvel Universe.)

There had been a previous Miles Morales Spider-man action figure, and I have that one shown below. Which one looks like a 14 year old boy to you?

Yeah, the new one on the right does. The figure on the left is from an Amazing Spider-man line from a year or two back. It was a nice figure, but this new one is a much better body type take on a barely teen hero.

I found the Miles Morales figure at Toys R Us. I wasn't even aware of it until I saw it on the pegs. Toys R Us had it for $6.99 which is a great price. It only has 5 points of articulation. But standing posed on a shelf, he works great with 6" Marvel Legends. At right above, Target has the exact same Spidey-figures, in different packaging, but for $2 more with some pack-ins of dubious play value. The Target figures are $9.99. Probably not worth the extra $2 for those "web slinging action" pack-ins.

Nice article. Personally I think people born 1977-1982 are "Gen Y" and Millennials are a different group, born roughly 1983-1996. Like any artificial grouping like this people can identify with stereotypical qualities of either depending on their individual circumstances.

Best Buy is the last Tech chain. Barnes and Noble the last Book Superstore. Now Staples may be the last office supply chain.

Best Buy and Barnes and Noble aren't doing well though.

Growth is the problem. Neither are "growing" markets. So they consolidate competition to have simulated short term growth from the merger. But combining two companies serving shrinking markets, will not produce one company with a growing market.

It's not enough in our current system to be profitable. You have to have year over year growth. There's no incentive, in the current mindset, for investors to invest in any business that doesn't do that.

Interoperability - what a bright idea.

Discovered that the $15 GE Link Lights at Home Depot work with the Hue Basestation and app.

The GE Link Lights don't have colors, they are white only, but they are dimmable.

Anyway, I have one in a ceiling light right now and I will probably add a couple more to some hall lights that would be nice to turn on/off from the phone, but that aren't worth spending $60 for more actual Hue Lights.

Sat, 25 May 2013 07:57:39 -0700
I?m not a fan of the new Flickr redesign. It?s not even that I don?t like the visual look of it.My primary beef is: without warning they completely changed the service for paying customers. I?ve payed for a Pro account for years under the assumption that paying for a service would provide a little more reliability. Flickr has shown that not to be the case, so I?m planning to use it far less frequently and probably far differently than the personal photo site of record I have been using it as. (I?m also not pleased with their likely upcoming attention/advertising model)

I was able to put all my photos into one Set and download the full size images using a free service called flickandshare.com, so I have everything safely out of the service now. Likely I will eventually set up my own simple photo gallery (and give these photos a new home) on my website at chris-karath.com. Hosting your own services and codes seem to be the most reliable method for content that you want around for years to come.

Photos that are here now, will probably continue to be here, Yahoo willing, into the future.

Since Flickr has shown itself to be of unpredictable stability, and it appears to be transforming into more a social network than a photo service, I?ll probably plan on treating it as such. If you subscribe to my account for the action figures, I?ll probably from time to time still post a picture or two of those here with links back to my own site where I?ll likely start posting more photos.

If you follow for my personal photos, following me on Twitter or my personal blog atchris-karath.com will probably be your best bet. --- Best wishes, Chris.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
I've never actually taken the full tour of the Museum. It was free today, so we went through it. It's nicely done for it's sort of thing.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
Those light poles to the shore should be dry land

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:01 -0700
Stairways to nowhere. Grand Rapids.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:00 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:59 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:58 -0700
Grand Rapids Art Museum. This display is by a new guy who just joined our team at work.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:49:01 -0700

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:17:53 -0700
Both these guys have contributed a lot to comics. I'm not implying anything with the choice of pose. I figure in classic comic parlance though, these two comic heroes would be obligated to fight before teaming up to defeat some great evil.

Recent Blog Comments

Thread: p1825 Post by Jolloway2013-02-23 12:23:49 Hi Cris and other people who view this sight,
I just started a blog site jolloway.co.uk and I wonderd if anyone can give me any tips on blogging. I am curently using a site called word press to host me blog. I start around about a month ago and I\'m really struggling with it and if you do reply I\'m only 11 and found this sight by a photo in google Images.
-Josh
P.S. I love the background XP

Thread: p1706 Post by Chris2012-10-27 13:29:47 Fortunately, I resisted the DC/Master Bundles as they were pretty much only bundled with basic figures I already had. Had they been bundled with more unique DC figures, I might have alot more Masters figures at this point ;)

Thread: p1706 Post by De2012-10-27 13:06:27 I almost bit on Masters of the Universe when they were being bundled with DC Universe figures in the two-packs. I\'ve also liked the blending of sci-fi and fantasy but a lad only has so much room :-)

Thread: p1674 Post by T. Bass2012-10-24 20:55:50 Hi Chris:
Like you, I bought and just received an ONDA V701. Mine took 32 days (!) to arrive from China (bought from gadgetdealer.com... avoid like plague), and the box was beat to hell, but it seems to work fine ....with one exception.
That said, I like the tablet thus far, but a couple of things aren\'t flying right. One, it was advertised as having Adobe Flash ver. 11.1, but instead, mine came with 10.2. Yours? Not sure this matters, as Flash is going the way of the dodo-bird as far as Android goes.
My only real complaint thus far, and that despite trying everything I could find online, I cannot get NetFlix to work. This was/is one of the main reasons I bought it, as they advertised that it \"works with NetFlix\". I don\'t know whether it\'s the tablet, or the app that is the problem, but nonetheless, no love from NetFlix at this point.
I don\'t know if you are subscribed to Netflix, but if you are, I sure would like to know if it works for you on your V701, and if so, how did you get it going, and what settings are you\'re using to make it work? Appreciate hearing from you.
Best,
T. Bass
Applegate, Oregon

Thread: p1557 Post by davy2012-08-24 17:58:58 i kind of agree with you, and i\'m sure bale had the best intentions but the whole media circus at times is disturbing.
but if to had to pick on whether bale should have visited or not i\'d rather he visit for the sole reason that if he made any of the survivors feel good,even if it was only for the briefest moments, then it was worth it.
the victims medical and emotonals needs should be put first and if bale\'s visit helped any of them emotionally then i\'m glad